


The Christmas Leap

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Quantum Leap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-18
Updated: 2003-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes to leap out you only need to make a wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas Leap

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Dana Kujan

 

 

The Christmas Leap 

He should've been happier. This was an easy leap, a very easy one - his memory wasn't so good, at least not about his personal life, but he remembered some of the previous ones. This time he almost did not need to improvise - no split-second decisions, nobody guessing he wasn't who he supposed to be... He made the leap into a morning and found himself in an empty classroom, sitting at the teacher's desk. He had just enough time to find out that he taught physics in high school, to locate the schedule, the lists of his students and his driver's license. He was James Hanley, he taught physics and, while it took an effort to recall his name (Sam! Not James!), he could've taught that day's lesson in his sleep. 

And the next one too. The day ran as smoothly as if he _was_ indeed James Hanley; he managed to talk with his colleagues by using the information overheard in the talk going around in the staffroom, and when the school day ended he easily found Hanley's car in its marked place on the parking lot. 

Hanley lived alone except for his cat, who seemed not to mind his master's temporary absence as long as she was fed. He also happened to be a very neat and methodical man, so Sam found everything he needed to get him through the next day, fixed himself a dinner and only then started to worry. 

Where was Al? He remembered clearly that a hologram called Al was supposed to appear somewhere in the beginning of the leap... No, not a hologram, Al was a real man, he just appeared as a hologram. Anyway, Al was supposed to tell him things, details of this leap, so that he wouldn't make a blunder. Of course, he had managed to avoid blunders anyway, but Al could not have known this beforehand - so where was Al? 

He went through the motions of a normal evening and then went to bed, expecting every second for Al to appear out of thin air. He'd be in one of his bright and often bizarre suits, with a cigar, perhaps... Or would he be in uniform? He had just remembered that Al appeared in uniform sometimes - wasn't he some kind of officer? 

Somehow it was easier to remember things about Al than about himself, and even when he remembered a detail of his own past, it still came to him in Al's voice. It seemed to Sam as if he had no past outside of Al... 

Sam fell asleep remembering with a smile Al's stories of his romantic exploits. That was it - Al was away, out with some lady, that was why he couldn't appear. After all, the man was entitled to a day off, wasn't he? But tomorrow he'd be back, telling Sam things, explaining what he was doing here... 

But the next day found Sam still going through James Hanley's life and still without any trace of Al. Then he realized that, even though he managed to deal with details of the present by himself, he also needed Al to tell him the future. He was here to change something - but what? 

Devoid of the guidance of Al and the computer - Ziggy, he almost heard Al say, Ziggy gives us trouble again, - Sam tried to find the purpose of his leap by himself. He had little luck. Hanley's private life was in order; he wasn't married and appeared to have no current romantic affairs, but was friendly with everybody and well-respected by his colleagues. 

The next obvious avenue of inquiry was Hanley's students - and here again Sam came up with nothing. Hanley taught mostly advanced classes, bright children with academic interests. As far as he could find, they - at least the ones whose lives Hanley _could_ influence - had no family troubles pressing on them, no dangerous involvements, and besides their grades were mostly interested in the approaching Christmas. 

Perfect. Everything here was just perfect, and he liked that place, liked the students and their questions, liked dealing with physics again and spending comfortable evenings in Hanley's apartment. But that wasn't what he came here for, was it? 

No, there was something he had to change for the better - and he needed Al to tell him what it was. Only Al wasn't coming, and all the pleasure of this unexpectedly peaceful leap was spoiled by the constant dull feeling of loss.   
 

* * *

  


His nagging worry slowly became apparent to people around him. Teachers and students both came to ask him whether he felt all right, and he had to tell them that yes, he was okay, he wasn't feeling ill, that he had plans for Christmas - that, of course, to Hanley's close friends only. Sam could only hope that Hanley would be home for Christmas. Somehow it seemed wrong to occupy someone's place right now, to get another man's presents and holiday cards. 

Of course, Sam thought, feeling a little sorry for himself, he deserved holidays too. He hadn't celebrated Christmas in... He did not know. Did no leap involve Christmas? But that did not matter. When he leaped out of here, he was very likely to go into another season entirely and to forget all these holiday problems. 

He was sitting at his desk again, looking through the lesson plans, when the door into the classroom opened. He did not jump, no - he had almost stopped waiting for Al, and, besides, why would Al come through an ordinary door? But still, there was a strange feeling telling him that this might be important. Sam turned to look at the door. 

It was a little girl that stood there. She was definitely younger than his students, but Sam thought he had seen her before. Some student's little sister, perhaps? Or a teacher's child? 

"Hi," he smiled at her. Thankfully, though young, she wasn't young enough to see _him_ instead of James Hanley. 

"Hi," the girl said, coming inside and radiating a feeling of purpose. "Are you waiting for someone?" 

"Yes," Sam answered patiently. "I am waiting for the students to come in for class." And for Al, he added silently, though the hologram's arrival seemed less and less likely with every moment. 

"Can I wait with you?" the girl said, settling at the front desk in the middle row and putting her brightly patterned backpack on the desktop. 

"Yes," Sam smiled. A student's sister, then, and quite an independent person already. Perhaps Hanley will be teaching her in several years... 

For several minutes they sat quietly, Sam dealing with the paperwork - had he forgotten how much paperwork a teacher had to do, or had he never known? - and the girl drawing something with a look of fierce concentration in a large notebook she got out of her backpack. 

He did not notice when he had stopped working and instead stared blindly ahead; it was the girl's voice that made him come back to himself. 

"I'm writing my letter to Santa Claus," she said. He looked at her, startled, and she said, "Don't you know you have to write him a letter before Christmas? You have to tell him what you did this year and what you want to get for a present... Here," she said suddenly, "you forgot to write it, didn't you? The grown-ups are always so busy..." 

Very decisively she tore a leaf out of her notebook and brought it, together with three crayons, across to his desk. "Write it now," she said. "You're still waiting anyway, aren't you? And it will make you feel better to think about all the nice things you will get for Christmas..." 

She returned to her desk already, and Sam smiled, shaking his head in wonder. This girl already knew how to give orders, just like Al... 

He took a crayon, turning it idly between his fingers. What did he do this year? Difficult for him to determine, what with jumping in and out of time... Even making a wish list was easier. What did he want for Christmas... He missed Al. He wanted to see his friend, to have an opportunity to wish him Merry Christmas, to... 

Naturally, Sam did not notice the blue light surrounding him. The world disappeared around him, and this sensation, both familiar and gut-wrenching, made Sam lose the track of his thoughts.   
 

* * *

  


Santa Claus said "Oh boy!", but nobody heard him. The room was big and noisy with people coming and going, someone was talking, somewhere music played. It was Christmas music and, thankfully, a good selection, not just two or three overplayed songs. He decided he was lucky - whoever chose a music station here, they had taste very much like his own. 

He stood three or four steps away from the door which he had obviously just entered. Someone else came in, pushing him inadvertently in the back, and he made another step ahead. "Oh, look!" a woman called. "Santa's already here!" 

People in the room started turning towards him with smiles. "Hey, Santa!" someone said. "Aren't you due to come at midnight?" 

He grinned and shrugged, still trying to get his bearings. "Very nice of him to help us with the rehearsal. Good costume!" another woman said. "Are you Greg?" 

"No, Greg is still dealing with the suppliers," a man answered. "Mike, isn't it?" 

He didn't answer, not knowing who he was supposed to be, and more people joined in, trying good-naturedly to guess his name. And at that moment Sam realized something. 

He knew these people. Some seemed more familiar, others less, which was why he did not notice the familiarity at once - but he had seen each one of them at least once. More than that, he thought he could remember the absent Greg and Mike... Where was he? What was going on? 

The woman who spoke about the rehearsal took his hand and dragged him back into the corridor where more people waited. "We're rehearsing in the first floor staff-room," she said. Sam followed her obediently, glad that someone knew what he was supposed to do here. 

Then she turned left. Sam turned with her automatically, without waiting for her directions, and realized that he knew the way to the staff-room too. Still, his thoughts were in disarray and he sorted through the partial memories of his past leaps, trying to understand what was going on, and it took the woman standing outside of their destination to make him stop and take a sharp breath. 

Verbena Beeks. 

"Hi, Dr Beeks!" his companion said. "Look, Santa's already here - I think we'll be quick with the rehearsal." 

"Guess you're right, Marie," Verbena agreed, letting them pass inside. She was real, Sam thought in wonder, real and solid, in no way a hologram, and that meant two things. 

First, Al was somewhere nearby - real solid Al, who wouldn't pass through the walls and whom Sam would even be able to touch. 

Second, he wasn't home yet. It was just a leap, another leap, because if he had come home for good, certainly someone would've noticed... 

This realization came together with painful disappointment, but Sam made himself smile and follow Marie and Verbena inside. It was better than nothing, and perhaps he would be able to get help, to work with Ziggy and to make at least an attempt to solve this prolonged mess his experiment had turned into. 

But first he had to wait for Al. Now, certainly, Al - the hologram Al from his own time - would be able to find him and explain what was going on and what he was doing here. What if by acting prematurely now he'd spoil forever his chances of returning home? 

Al would certainly tell him what year this was, who he was now and what was his goal. And maybe he'd get a glimpse of this reality's Al, or even walk past him and touch him, just a little, to remind himself that Al was real and not a figment of his imagination. And if Al was real, then he, Sam, was real too... 

Meanwhile Marie led him towards a makeshift scene. Thankfully, his role did not seem to require much of a script, and when he _did_ need to say something, Marie very helpfully gave him cues. 

Sam needed a lot of cues. He was thinking furiously, trying not to let himself stare at the faces of his friends and to decide what to do now. First, neither version of Al was here. Second, he still did not know who he was - and he wasn't allowed even a moment free to take off the fake beard and look into the mirror. 

So now he had two possibilities to work with. It could be an ordinary leap which required him to change someone's life and to go on - and in that occasion, Sam thought with some bitterness, his swiss-cheese memory will come in handy, because it would have been unbearable to remember that home had been left behind yet again. 

Or it could be a leap for him - most likely, a chance for him to work with Ziggy and to try calculating his return home. Had Ziggy known he was here? She should've, but he had no chance to check up with her - the rooms he was paraded through weren't connected to her dialogue interface. To talk with her he'd need to go to the control room, his own office or Al's office. 

Sam decided to concentrate on the second possibility since he had no way to work with the first, unless Al appeared or blind luck helped him. No, the only thing he could do once he was free from here was to talk to Ziggy. And for that either of the two offices would be much more convenient than the control room. He had, somehow, no wish to meet his friends only to leap out later. He wouldn't even talk to the local version of Al, he promised himself. 

Obeying the commands he was given, laughing with forced heartiness and brandishing gaily packed presents, Sam continued to sift through things he had to do. Yes, his own office should be empty now, and Al's... well, as soon as he saw Al out there somewhere, it would mean that Al's office was also empty. 

Making a definite decision against going to the control room Sam caught an edge of the fleeting memory. Control room... talking to Ziggy... He had come back once before. Now that he realized what the memory had meant, it became clearer with every second. Yes, he had come back, as himself, not in a leap, but... What happened? 

His part in the rehearsal was, thankfully, mostly over, and Sam was allowed to sit down. There was a woman with familiar face... Donna. Adult Donna here in the project, hugging him... They were married, Donna and him. They weren't married when he started the project, Sam was suddenly certain. How did things change? 

Analyzing the memory further, Sam remembered another thing. He had come back, but Al hadn't been here. Had something happened to Al? _When_ had all this taken place? What if it was recent? What if something was wrong with Al? He needed to know what was going on, and he couldn't ask anybody. Surely whoever he was now either was expected to know such things already - or this wasn't any of his business. 

Battling sudden alarm, Sam started listening to what he had been previously ignoring - people talking all around him. This was only a rehearsal, and the staff-room was pretty noisy, some people leaving after having played their part, others coming in. Sam could already hear snatches of gossip, involuntarily smiling behind his beard at some pieces of wild and unexpected news. If Donna was working here, someone should mention her sooner or later... 

But it wasn't Donna's name that he heard first, and he quicly forgot about her. "We need the Admiral to do it properly," Marie said to Tim, one of her more enthusiastic helpers. 

Tim made a face. "For a rehearsal? Come on, we'll be lucky if he appears at the ceremony itself... You know how he is at this time of the year..." 

"I know," Marie sighed, "and he gets worse and worse each year, doesn't he? Still, it does him no good to sit there and brood..." 

"Do you want to go and tell him that?" Tim said wryly. 

Marie shook her head. "Oh well," she said with disappointment in her voice, "let's get on with this." 

They wrapped up the rehearsal, and not a moment too soon, in Sam's opinion. Marie and Tim's words made him desperately worried about Al. Was it the reason he was here? Did he have to help Al? 

Now he definitely needed to talk to Ziggy. Al from the future might not be too eager to appear here and to consult him in such a mission. And his direction had also already been chosen. It was evident from Marie's words that Al was at his office, so Sam had to go to his own. 

It turned out to be relatively easy to slip away from the other people who had participated in the rehearsal. People saw him walking away purposefully, so nobody thought to question him. Sam walked through familiar corridors, turning away from the busy intersections near the staff-room and administrative offices. A short elevator ride, and he arrived up at the third floor. 

Here all the rooms he went past seemed to be empty - the labs, the science library... The control room was in another section of this floor, but Sam wasn't going to go in that direction. He was already close to his own office - and to Al's, he remembered. At first they chose rooms further away from each other, but it turned to be inconvenient - too much time had been lost in going back and forth when they simply _had_ to discuss something face to face. 

Suddenly he heard voices and, before he could start to worry unreasonably, a couple of lab technicians appeared from round the corner. He remembered them - both single and prone to work after hours. They were probably the last people leaving work before the holiday. At least, the last people besides someone on watch in the control room. And Al. Al had to be here somewhere. 

Had Ziggy already noticed him? The computer monitored all the leaps and, if he remembered the procedure correctly, had to warn the observers. Still, perhaps detecting the leap which geographically took place within the walls of the project building might've given Ziggy additional difficulties. She also could've chosen not to warn Al... 

"Merry Christmas, Santa Claus!" the technicians called, going past him. Santa Claus? Oh, right, he was still wearing the costume... Sam thought briefly about taking it off but then decided to leave it until he was safely behind the doors of his office. He still could encounter a guard passing though on his detail, and the person he had leaped into could've been someone with no business being on this floor. 

He waved to the technicians and they went away, discussing something...Al? Or was he hearing Al's name everywhere, his friend staying the only person real to him even back in the project building? No, he had certainly heard it clearly. "Admiral... missing Dr Beckett, I guess..." 

Sam felt a brief stab of guilty pain. Was he himself the reason for Al's mood? Well, if that was so, he would do something about it. After fixing the lives of so many people that he had forgotten the number of his leaps he could not leave his friend without help. 

Finally near his goal, he entered the secretary's room outside his own office, keeping his movements quiet in the near-silence of this wing. Sam smiled, looking at the familiar small desk that somehow had never had a permanent secretary working at it. More often than not he and Al stopped there when he let Al out or in, caught in another idea, spreading papers on the desk to add a final detail... He had stopped here that last time, he suddenly remembered, before making that leap, only Al hadn't been with him... 

There was a peculiar hum coming from the room, and it took Sam a second to recognize it. Ziggy, it was Ziggy demonstrating how hard she worked... He knew perfectly well that their temperamental computer could operate soundlessly, but, Ziggy said, "you'd think I wasn't doing anything." Had Ziggy already started the calculations he'd need? 

Sam opened the door to the inner office, pulling the itchy beard off with his free hand. That was when he heard the voices. 

"Patience, Admiral. I'm close to locating the data source..." 

"Damn it, that's what you're telling me for the last two days!" Al. Al was here, his voice sounding rough and annoyed. "Did you notice a leap or didn't you?" 

The door opened and Sam stepped inside. Al turned towards him from where he sat at Sam's unfamiliarly bare desk. 

"Yes, Admiral," Ziggy said slowly, "seems there _was_ a leap after all..." 

But Al did not appear to hear that. For a moment his face was absolutely blank and frozen, and then he got up with one abrupt movement and Sam stared at him with fascination, for the smile that was spreading on Al's face was the brightest and most beautiful thing Sam had ever seen. 

"Sam," Al said hoarsely. "Sam. Sam." 

And then he crossed the office floor and was near Sam, hugging him. 

Sam hugged back, even though a the moment his hug must've looked more like a weak arm-flapping, for Al squeezed him so tightly that he thought he would burst. 

Then Al stepped back and looked at Sam, his eyes shining with what Sam was almost sure were unshed tears. "Santa Claus?" he said with a weak grin. "God, Sam, now I have to start believing in Santa Claus again..." 

Sam looked at Al avidly, himself not sure what to believe, his brain spinning madly in search of a scientific explanation and failing. Later, he decided, I'll think about it later... He put a hand on Al's shoulder. "You're solid," he whispered, "you're real..." 

"Damn right I'm real," Al almost growled and hugged him again. He turned his face a little up, looking at Sam, and there _were_ tears in his eyes, on his cheeks. Al's face was suddenly so close that it filled the whole of Sam's vision, and it must've been this closeness that made Sam do a very strange thing. 

He leaned closer and kissed Al's smiling mouth. 

Somehow it felt like the most natural thing to do, like another way to reassure himself of the reality of his friend. Al tasted like Al - a faint trace of what Sam guessed to be a cigar, and some coffee and underneath it just something that felt familiar and good and infinitely dear to him. 

This time it was he who stepped back to see Al better, not letting go of his friend's shoulders. And only then he had noticed that Al was staring at him strangely, and had realized what he had done. 

"I... sorry, Al, I just... I just had to..." He was a master at explaining things and yet it was very difficult to explain why he _had_ to kiss Al. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I did not want to offend you..." 

Al was shaking his head, and there were still tears in his eyes, but they also sparkled with what Sam recognized to be laughter. "You didn't," Al said simply, and kissed him back. 

"Leap #F-1304-2-L-13 concluded," Ziggy said behind their backs. "Leap evaluated as a success. Experiment concluded." 

The end. 

 


End file.
